Digital Fluency Intensive - Enabling Access- Sites

 Deep dive into Effective Sites


We started the DIF by evaluating some of our colleague's sites through TWO lenses: Engagement and User experience.  

On the one hand, the site needs to be inviting and appealing - draw you to it.  
On the other hand, it is a working and learning environment. It needs to be very easy to use.  Effective sites combine both elements.

Here are some of the ideas we came up with:
For visual appeal use:

• relevant images
• large buttons with less writing, very clear message for directing
• white background with few buttons
• simple eye-catching buttons that link to learning
• images in each button which are engaging.
• a clean and clear landing page- easy to navigate and know where to go
• students pics on the home page and buttons

For a good user experience have:

• learning groups accessible from the home page.
• current learning at the top of the page
• just a few clicks to find the learning
• a home page that is  simple, clear and child-friendly
• clear identity and authenticity
• a home/blog/ school website buttons to take you back and navigate quickly through
• a way to navigate easily and have clear distinct buttons to reach relevant pages.

Connected Learners and Teachers

• Manaiakalani has a shared language - the pedagogy and kaupapa language. This is made possible because it is visible.
• Face to face makes connecting easier and shared experience

Here are some of the ways Manaiakalani shares:

@clusternz - our young learners     

@MDTAcohort - our MDTA teachers share their learning

@TeachInquire - teachers share their professional inquiries

@mitSpark - Spark-MIT teachers inquiries

#manaiakalani

Google Sites - Here are my takeaways!

Start with the why.

The Purpose!

Who are your learners?
Why are they using the site?
What is your theme?

Choose and theme and stick to it. There is nothing worse than looking at an overload of colours and layout.






Remember to think about all learning tasks using the SAMR model. This way they will be purposeful.

Layout

Think about keeping page layouts similar as this makes it easier for the learners and you. 
You will want to plan each page and its context before creating it. 

Fronts

Try to keep fonts consistent throughout your site and if possible embedded items. 
You will want no more than two fonts.

Planning Your Class Site

How many pages do you need?
What will be linked off your home page?
What is the layout of each page?

Three-click rule 

When then spent some time evaluating our class sites.
My feedback included: 'Very visually appealing! Love the buttons...', 'super clean and crisp', 'love the images used on buttons', 'Lots of writing (parent well educated) and clear links to WALTs', 'Really like the layout of your home page.' 

A good tip is to check out your site in an incognito tab. This will show you what your learners and parents will see when they are using your site outside of the school domain.

The rest of the day was a chance to used the feedback we got from our peers and edits our class sites accordingly. I checked that all learning was accessible within 3 clicks and shared appropriately.

Going forward - how will I support teachers back at Owairaka? One idea is to support using a shared team site in middle school. Another is to upskill teachers during staff meetings. Both will be easily achievable using learning from the last 5 DFI's as a guide.